The Mausoleum

Starred review from April 8, 2019
Set in the North of England, this exceptional novel from Mark (the Aector McAvoy series) centers on two women, Cordelia Hemlock and Felicity Goose, who meet in a graveyard near the isolated village of Gilsland one day in 1967. Oxford-educated Cordelia is mourning the recent death of her nearly two-year-old son, and Felicity, a local, has come to lay flowers on her mother’s grave. A sudden thunderstorm arises, and lightning strikes a tree that smashes into a mausoleum. The two watch in horror as the body of a man tumbles onto the grass. The women take refuge at Felicity’s house, and when Cordelia later returns to the graveyard, the body has disappeared. The alternating narrative voices of Cordelia and Felicity slowly unfold a tragic tale with its roots in WWII that becomes ever more complex and frightening as the mendaciousness of human nature takes its toll. Evocative prose is a plus (Felicity is “a Gilsland girl. As much a part of the landscape as the cow shit and tumbledown stone walls”). Mark is writing at the top of his game. Agent: Oli Munson, A.M. Heath (U.K.).

April 1, 2019
A lifetime of secrets is slowly revealed in this intricate look into past murders and present-day guilt. October 1967 finds Cordelia Hemlock lonely and grief-stricken in the remote area of the Scottish borderlands hard by Hadrian's Wall, mourning her young son who recently died. While lying in a cemetery one day, she's approached by Felicity Goose, a local woman destined to become her lifelong friend. Cordelia and her rarely seen husband bought a house in the area where they were raising Cordelia's son, Stefan, the product of a short-lived university affair that could never end in marriage. Instead, Cordelia accepted an offer of support for Stefan and herself from a gay, highly placed government official who needed a wife for cover. The area residents' dismissal of Cordelia as a snob has softened since she lost her child. Now, when a sudden storm catches the two women in the graveyard, a lightning strike fells a tree, destroying a small crypt and revealing not only ancient bones, but the body of a much newer corpse in a dark suit. Recovering in Felicity's house, Cordelia meets a neighbor named Fairfax Duke, who agrees to go to the cemetery to see the body Felicity doesn't want to admit exists. When Fairfax doesn't return to Felicity's house, it turns out that he's been killed in a car crash. The other body has disappeared, but the police ask no questions, so Cordelia finds a new purpose in life investigating what she assumes is a murder. Since the death of his son in World War II, Fairfax had never stopped asking questions and writing the stories of everyone in the area who would talk to him, and now he's left a rich lode of information for Cordelia. Many of the people he interviewed are local, but some just never left the area after being released from a POW camp during World War II. As the story shifts from the 1960s to 2010, appalling secrets come to light, putting Cordelia in jeopardy while changing her life in unimaginable ways. In a departure from his superlative police procedurals (Cold Bones, 2019, etc.), Mark produces a stand-alone psychological thriller, character-driven but with plenty of bizarre twists, that's sure to please fans of Catriona McPherson.

COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 1, 2019
Two elderly women sit at the bedside of a dying man. But who are they and why are they there? In a story spanning nearly six decades, Mark weaves a grisly, creepy tale of violence, hatred, revenge, and honor that will have readers captivated from the first page. Set in the cold, windy, and rainy north of England, the story focuses on Felicity and Cordelia, two woman who are utterly unalike but who are brought together by a cataclysmic event that has shocking repercussions. Cordelia?scarred by a difficult life?has moved to the remote village of Gilsland to escape her past but finds herself isolated and alone after losing her child. Felicity grew up in Gilsland and knows shockingly little about the world beyond the village. After a terrible storm, the pair make a curious discovery that will lead to the revelation of deadly secrets but that also will make them fast friends. Deft writing, a plot filled with strange and unexpected twists, vivid characters, and a constant feeling of foreboding make this a gripping and unusual read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)